Despite a £27,875 taxpayer funded housing allowance, Simmonds said that he was not prepared to 'travel extensively" to the House of Commons and that the allowance, which provides £20,600 for himself and an extra £2,425 for each of his three children, would force him to live in the "outer reaches of London". Simmonds' wife is paid up to £25,000-a-year to work as his office manager.

Simmonds said that MPs "clearly need" more money to rent flats in London to enable families to stay together. The MP, who represents the Lincolnshire constituency of Boston and Skegness, said that the thought of living in hotels for work filled him with "dread and horror".

Leaving aside the £89,435-a-year Simmonds made as a minister, here are six homes he could have rented for him and his family using only his £27,875 housing allowance